


Easy

by peevee



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Cock Slapping, Crying, M/M, Masochism, Reluctant Sadist, Scratching, Service Top Richie Tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25555600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peevee/pseuds/peevee
Summary: Eddie likes pain. Richie just wants to take care of him.“Richie, come on.” Eddie’s voice is coaxing, gentle. He’s propped up with all the pillows Richie owns, sprawling luxuriously naked in Richie’s bed, and he’s asking… he’s asking -“Hurt me,” he says, eyes half-lidded. “Please, Rich.”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 23
Kudos: 225





	Easy

**Author's Note:**

> An inspired anon got me thinking about Eager Masochist!Eddie/Reluctant Sadist!Richie and... well. Here we are. Thank you, nonnie <3

Richie’s been thinking about this for twenty-seven years. He’s been thinking about it even when he couldn’t remember who he was thinking about, even when the face he was dreaming about slipped between his fingers every time he woke. 

Eddie’s hand is on his jaw, and they’re going to kiss. Eddie’s eyes are dark. His expressive eyebrows are drawn together, gaze flicking down to Richie’s mouth and back up. He tips his head, and Richie bends down so that he doesn’t have to strain against his injuries. That sharp, antiseptic hospital smell fills his nose as their mouths brush together, and Richie has to restrain himself from grabbing, holding, _pulling_ Eddie towards him, crushing them together. He has to be gentle, has to be careful. 

After far too short a time, Eddie falls back against the bed and makes a hissing sort of sound, like he just put pressure on something tender. 

“Fuck,” Richie murmurs. “Sorry. Sorry Eds, I shouldn’t have - I -” He feels too big, too clumsy, like he’s going to stumble around in… whatever this is, whatever’s happening here and break it. Richie isn’t fucking built for subtlety, has never handled Eddie carefully, and he doesn’t know how to even start.

“If you tell me we shouldn’t have done that, I’ll get up out of this shitty bed and strangle you myself,” Eddie rasps. His eyes are closed, and his face is pale with pain and exhaustion, but he has delicate spots of colour high on his cheeks, and when he does open his eyes they’re gleaming with satisfaction.

It’s been a week, since they pulled him out of that place. A week that’s seemed both like an hour and a year. Richie’s internal clock, if it was ever functioning, is fucked beyond recognition, and he’s not even sure he remembers existing in a world other than this strange, half-manic dream state of waiting rooms and fluorescent lights and the sudden rush of horrified adrenaline every time the machines hooked up to Eddie’s limp body began to wail and beep.

So, the first time, he’s not sure it’s even happened. If he’s dreaming it, stumbling into some sort of liminal space that exists between fantasy and reality, because surely the Eddie of his fantasies wouldn’t be this pale, this small-looking. Sometimes he wakes up with a start, and has to remember that Eddie isn’t dead, that he didn’t bleed out down there in the sewers, that they got him out, he’s here, he’s breathing.

“Hey, numbnuts,” says Eddie. “You okay over there?”

He sounds… worried. Richie blinks a few times, then looks up at him. He looks very real; dark circles under his eyes, the line on his cheek a livid red against the pallor of his face. It’s scarred up already, and that’s too quick. It’s too quick, isn’t it? Richie tries not to think about impossibilities.

“I think I… I feel a bit, uh -” Great. Articulate. 

“I’ve been telling you, Rich, you just need to fucking sleep. You look like a goddamned ghost, it’s freaking me out.”

“But, I need to -”

“Richie,” says Eddie, his face smoothing out. He makes a little grabby hand against those blue hospital sheets and Richie reaches out to take it; his fingers are cold. “I’m okay. If I call Mike and ask him to come and look in to make sure I’m not dead, will you go back to the Townhouse and go to sleep?”

“I -” It feels like he has to wade through molasses to process his thoughts into speech, and okay, yeah, maybe Eddie has a point here. “Yeah. Okay, yeah. You’ll call Mike now?”

“I’m texting him,” says Eddie, prodding at his phone with uncoordinated fingers. He twists the phone around as soon as he’s got a reply to show Richie the screen. “Bill’s gonna come. Okay?”

Richie nods, head heavy. He drags himself to his feet, feeling like someone’s cast concrete around his legs. 

“Hey,” says Eddie, as he plods towards the door. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Richie squints, confused, but goes to the bed when Eddie beckons him, lets himself be pulled down and… oh - okay. Eddie’s mouth is cool and the kiss is rough with stubble. Richie can smell a faint hint of warm human smell under all the clean disinfectant and it makes him nuzzle a little closer, sigh against Eddie’s mouth. Eddie’s smiling at him when he pulls back. It’s a small, private thing - Eddie’s expressions are usually larger than life - and Richie can’t help but lean back down to kiss him again, brush his mouth against that sweet little smile. 

“Go on,” says Eddie, shoving at his shoulders. “Get _off_ me, you gigantic lunk, you aren’t sleeping here.”

Richie goes, his feet heavy, a strange giddy sort of feeling welling up somewhere deep behind his ribs.

-

They kiss a lot after that. Small, chaste kisses hello, and goodbye. Sweetly lingering kisses, once Eddie gets the all-clear from the hospital (too soon, it’s too fucking soon, not soon enough) and relocates to the Townhouse where there’s a bed big enough for Richie to gingerly crawl in next to him and kiss him awake, careful not to jostle him. 

Eddie’s pushy about it, always trying to pull Richie closer, kiss him deeper, but Richie resists. There’s this image that’s stuck in his head, flickering there like an old corrupted videotape that keeps skipping back to the same scene over and over; Eddie lying on that trolley they’d hoisted him onto, covered in blood and shitty mud and dark, viscous gore, a pale doctor almost wrist-deep in his chest as they tried to restart his heart. So he holds Eddie carefully and kisses him gently and thinks _I’ll never let you get hurt again_. 

-

“Richie,” Eddie groans, “Jesus, I’m fucking dying here. Kiss me properly, man. I won’t fucking break.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m going to fucking hurt _you_ ,” Eddie hisses, “I’m going to fucking kick you in the balls!”

And shit, Richie’s not made of stone, okay? Eddie’s warm and alive in his arms, pushing him around like a little fucking tyrant, and Richie lets himself go, lets himself grip the back of Eddie’s head and pull him in, their tongues sliding together. Eddie groans into his mouth and rubs his fat dick against Richie’s thigh.

“Jesus,” he says, “oh, fuck, Eddie.”

He can’t make himself pull away from Eddie’s mouth for long enough to do anything more than shove their underwear down and bracket himself over Eddie so that Eddie doesn’t have to move. So that Richie can lower himself down and shove their dicks snugly together and fuck the hot, sweaty crease of Eddie’s hip. His arms tremble with the effort of holding his upper body away from Eddie’s, and his eyes keep flicking down to the pale, taped-up padding that covers Eddie’s chest. 

“Want you to fuck me,” Eddie groans, rocking his hips up. “Want this inside me.”

“Holy fuck,” says Richie, vision blurring behind his glasses. He kept them on so that he could see, so that he could _watch_ , but they keep slipping down his nose and he can barely keep his eyes from rolling back in his head anyway. 

“Yeah, put it in me, make it fucking hurt, _Richie_ -”

His right hand squirms between them, and he’s barely touched his dick before he’s coming, going almost silent as he tenses, then gasps and shudders under Richie. He gives himself a few shivery strokes through the aftershocks, then slides his come covered hand over Richie’s dick.

Richie can barely think through the haze of Eddie’s hand on him, Eddie touching his dick, lubed up with his own come, his thumb rubbing in a brain-melting little rhythm over the head. He thinks about getting Eddie’s legs spread, getting inside him, fucking him so good he’d cry -

_Make it fucking hurt, Richie_

He comes with shocking suddenness, Eddie’s hand working him through it easily. He almost sobs, but manages to keep his dignity and just moans pathetically as Eddie strokes him. He tries not to look directly at the thought that had made him come in about two seconds flat. 

After Eddie’s shoved him off and stomped away to the bathroom to clean himself up, Richie wipes at his belly with a discarded t-shirt, then stares at the ceiling and hates himself. He shouldn’t want to hurt Eddie. He _doesn’t_ want to hurt Eddie. He wants to keep Eddie safe and unhurt for the rest of his fucking life, so why did the thought of hurting Eddie just make him come his fucking brains out? He rolls over and presses his face into the pillow. 

“You’d better not be getting jizz everywhere, dick-for-brains,” says Eddie, padding back in from the bathroom. “We have to sleep here.” He gives Richie’s ass a pat and crawls back in next to him. 

“Mmph,” says Richie. 

“Hey. You okay? Was that… it was good, right?” Eddie sounds a little uncertain, and Richie can’t stand to hear that nervousness in his voice. 

He turns towards Eddie and gently pulls him close. Careful with him, as always.

“So good. You’re the fuck of my dreams, Spaghedward.”

Eddie snorts at him, but he looks pleased. “We can do that, right? I wasn’t just saying it. I do want to.” His tongue comes out and slides over his lower lip. “Fuck, that is.”

Richie hesitates, and Eddie flinches back ever so slightly. “Or not. Whatever. I don’t give a shit.”

“It’s - no, I do! I really _really_ do. Jesus.”

“But?”

“I don’t wanna hurt you, man.” _Liar!_

Eddie swallows. “You’re not going to, Richie. But, uh -” He squirms out of Richie’s arms and turns to stare at the ceiling. “What if I told you that I liked that?”

“Uh?”

“I’d like it,” says Eddie, still not looking at him. “If you made it hurt.”

“Uh,” says Richie again. Articulate, Tozier! Nice job. He doesn’t want to say anything wrong, anything to fuck this up, but he can’t help the way he instinctively rails against the idea of hurting Eddie, who’s already been hurt so much already. 

“Not, like -” Eddie’s hand comes up to gently touch at the edges of the padding on his chest, then he turns his head towards Richie. “I’m not fucking stupid. Just. If you wanted to do it a bit… rough.”

“I can’t,” blurts Richie. 

Eddie’s face shuts down, and he starts to turn away again. “Fine. It’s nothing, I just -”

“No, wait -” Richie reaches for him. “I don’t mean I can’t… at all. Sorry, I’m fucking this up. We can’t - I don’t think it’s a good idea, to, to make it rough just now. And I don’t think I could, uh. But. I could make it hurt… gently?”

“Gently,” says Eddie, a little flat. 

“Yeah, like, uh -” Richie wracks his brains, then scrambles up onto his knees. “Spread your legs,” he says. Eddie goes a bit pink, but he does it quickly enough and Richie situates himself between them. 

“Say something if this isn’t what you… uh. What you want.”

He slides his hand up Eddie’s thigh, trying not to get distracted by how easily Eddie’s legs spread for him. When he reaches the tender little stretch of skin where his inner thigh meets his hip, Richie strokes him a little, then pinches him hard, biting into the skin with his nails. 

“Fuck!”

Richie releases him, then pets lightly at the little mark, which is quickly turning pink apart from two pale, curved indents from his fingernails. He looks up at Eddie's face. 

“So, uh. Like that?”

Eddie blinks at him, eyes wide. “Yeah,” he says. His own hand comes down to touch the mark Richie made, and they both stare at it for a moment before Eddie lets out a breathy little laugh. “Yeah, that’s good.”

-

There’s a bruise there the next day. It’s small, not quite round. The fingernail marks have faded, and it's gone a deep pink, a marbled swirl of purple through the centre. 

“Fuck, sorry,” says Richie when he sees it in the morning. “I didn’t realise that I - that it was that hard.” There’s a sickish, roiling feeling in his stomach when he looks at it, the evidence of the pain that he’d inflicted. Eddie just touches it a little dreamily before he pulls his underwear on. 

They’re leaving today, packing up and getting a flight out to LAX. Richie only just remembers to call someone to clean his place up and stock the refrigerator; he can’t even remember what sort of state he left his apartment in. Memories from the day Mike had called are like they’re from a different person, from a different life. Snapshots of standing up on that stage, heaving over the railing, throwing clothes haphazardly into a bag. He’s lucky he didn’t just pack fifteen shirts and nothing else. He tries to remember if the guest room is set up, whether it’s kosher to ask Danny to change his bedsheets or if that’ll get him blacklisted from every cleaning agency in Downtown.

Eddie’s distracted, barely helpful as they pack up the last of their shit and pile it haphazardly into the rental car. Richie thinks it’s probably the prescription strength painkillers, but he can’t help noticing that Eddie keeps touching his thigh, messing with the little bruise that Richie gave him. 

The flight is uneventful. Richie’s been on enough planes and at enough airports that the hours pass in a monotonous blur of cramped seats and tiny plastic glasses of sparkling water and mini pretzels. Eddie sleeps through most of it, waking up enough to stumble through security and be gently bundled into a cab at LAX, and it’s the early hours of the morning when they stagger through the door of Richie’s apartment. 

It’s so, so fucking weird being back after everything that’s happened. Richie barely feels like the life he was living before belonged to him. That he’s the same person who left this place less than a month ago.

“Bed?” says Eddie hopefully. They have to change the dressing on his wounds before he can sleep, and Richie digs through their luggage to find the spare pads and tape as Eddie peels the old one from his chest. Neither of them mention how fast it’s healing. How the injury that Eddie had should have fucking killed him, or left him in hospital for months rather than closing up in barely a couple of weeks. Somehow, he doubts that any of the hospital staff noticed anything wrong. Fucking Derry.

Instead, Richie carefully cleans the rapidly scarring skin and tapes a pad back over it, then repeats the process for the one on his back. Once they’re covered, there’s a palpable easing of tension between them, and Eddie leans up to pull Richie down for a lingering kiss. 

“Mm,” he says, blinking slowly as they pull away. He stands, then sways slightly and uses a hand on Richie’s shoulder to steady himself. 

“Jesus,” he laughs softly. “Where the fuck’s your bedroom, man? I’m gonna sleep for a fucking _week_.”

“You don’t want... Uh. I have a guest room?”

Eddie gives him a withering look. “I’m not sleeping in the fucking guest room, idiot.”

“Right. Yeah, okay.” 

Richie leads him to the bedroom, feeling a little like he’s in that dream-space again, but it’s real. It’s real, and Eddie’s here, crawling into his bed with a groan of bliss and inching his way under Richie’s sheets. 

“Get your overgrown ass in here,” Eddie mumbles, already half asleep. Richie slides in next to him, gingerly puts his right hand on Eddie’s side to feel the gentle rise and fall of his ribs. It’s comforting; the soft, rhythmic reminder that Eddie’s still breathing. 

-

“Richie, come on.” Eddie’s voice is coaxing, gentle. He’s propped up with all the pillows Richie owns, sprawling luxuriously naked in Richie’s bed, and he’s asking… he’s asking -

“Hurt me,” he says, eyes half-lidded. “Please, Rich.”

God. Richie reaches down to pinch him on the tender inside of his elbow, and Eddie’s breath comes out sharply through his nose. He trails his fingers around, digging them in and nipping with his fingernails, leaving little trails of reddened marks all over Eddie’s thighs and arms, avoiding his chest entirely. Eddie’s breathing heavily, his cock thick against his belly, and he gives a short moan and a frustrated squirm when Richie stops. Jesus, it looks like he’s been fucking _mauled_. Richie swallows, his stomach flip-flopping around at the sight of it. 

“Jesus, Eds. Are you sure this is okay?”

“Yes,” Eddie grits out. “Don’t fucking _stop_.”

Richie takes a few deep breaths, then digs his nails into the tops of Eddie’s thighs and drags them down to his knees, four matching trails of rapidly pinking skin on each leg. Eddie arches up under him with a groan, then gives a hiss that sounds like the bad sort of pain. Richie pulls his arms back so quickly he almost punches himself in the hip. 

“Fuck, shit, are you okay?”

“Just used a muscle that didn’t want to be used,” Eddie gasps. “Seriously. It was nothing. _Please_ do that again.”

There’s a flush creeping up Eddie’s chest, and his legs are spreading wider even as Richie hesitantly touches the marks he just made. He looks… Jesus, he looks good. He looks so fucking good covered in those marks, like Richie’s put fingerprints all over him. He drags his nails over Eddie’s thighs again, and this time Eddie trembles and pants but stays still. His eyes are closed, his mouth open; he’s leaked a pool of fluid onto his belly, and Richie hasn’t even touched him. 

“Can I fuck you?” he blurts out. God. He’ll be lucky if he lasts ten seconds, with Eddie looking like that. With Eddie, full fucking stop, but he wants to see Eddie on his dick, wants to spread his legs and get inside him, get his fucking _tongue_ in him, like Eddie would ever agree to it. 

“Jesus, Rich,” Eddie groans. “Wanna sit on it.”

Richie nearly bites his tongue off. Instead, he grips one of Eddie’s legs and slaps him right on top of that first little bruise where he’s most sensitive, where he squirms the most when Richie pinches him. It’s obvious he’s trying not to move, his legs trembling with effort, his dick twitching away from his belly.

“Lube’s in my backpack,” he says. He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Top zip pocket. Go on!”

Richie scrambles off the bed to search through their haphazard pile of luggage. “No fannypack, Spaghetti-man? You’ve really grown as a person.”

“Listen, asswipe. If I _did_ still have a fannypack then maybe your dick would already be in my ass.” 

“Nuh uh, you’re not converting me to your Type-A dork ways, Kaspbrak. Ah - that’s a bingo!”

“Thought you were supposed to sweet talk me,” says Eddie, spreading his legs as Richie crawls back between them. The scratches on thighs are luridly red, like they’ve been drawn on with sharpie. Richie wants to soothe them, stroke them. He also really, really wants to bite them.

“Ooh, baby, let me put my dick in you,” he says instead. 

“Smooth,” says Eddie. “You’ve done this before, right?”

Richie laughs. “Yeah. I might have been the world’s most pathetic closet case, but I did actually manage to get my dick wet a few times. I know, I know. Major achievement.” He clicks the cap on the lube and squirts a generous amount onto his palm. “Wait, have you?”

Eddie goes red. “Not exactly?”

“Ooh,” says Richie, catching his meaning. “Kinky! You still got ‘em?”

“ _One_ ,” Eddie corrects, “I only had one, and there’s nothing kinky about a dildo, Richie. I’m very vanilla.”

Richie raises one eyebrow and gives him a light pinch just above the knee.

“Vanilla. Sure. Want my fingers first?”

Eddie reddens even more. 

“No,” he says, like it’s a confession being pulled out of him. “Just... get it wet.”

“Now who’s the sweet talker?” Richie smooths lube over his dick, trying to keep his touches as light as possible so he doesn’t go off like a fucking rocket the second he’s inside. 

“Uh. Do you just want me to -” He points his dick and kind of… gestures with it. Eddie rolls his eyes and hooks an arm under one of his knees. 

“Slow down if I tell you to,” he says, then he can’t be snippy any more because his eyes are sliding closed, mouth opening as Richie slowly stuffs him full of his dick.

It has to hurt. Has to. He’s tight as a fucking vice, and only clenching down more as Richie works his way in achingly, _achingly_ slowly. Eddie’s making all these little noises, short whines through his nose and little “hah!” sounds, his scratched-up legs trying to fall open wider as his hands clutch the sheets. He doesn’t say one fucking word about slowing down.

“Fuck, Eddie, am I hurting you?” Richie says.

“Yeah,” Eddie whines, “oh, fuck, it hurts!”

“Tell me you like it, tell me -”

“I like it, I like it, you make it hurt so fucking good, Rich -”

Richie holds himself still, trembling. He can’t fucking tear his eyes away from Eddie’s pink face, the blush that’s spreading down his chest and under his bandages. He’s mostly avoided touching Eddie’s chest - just looking at that taped up piece of padding is like poking at a tender tooth with his tongue - so he’s saved his scratches and pinches for Eddie’s arms and legs. Eddie arches his chest up, though, as he tries to work himself down further on Richie’s dick, and his dusky brown nipples are just… right there. Richie shifts forward to balance himself on one arm over Eddie, uses his other hand to stroke over Eddie’s chest above the padding. His nipples are hard little points, the texture of them addictive under Richie’s hand, and before he can think about it he’s got one pinched between his thumb and forefinger, digging his nails in to make it sting. 

“ _Ow_ , Jesus fuck!” Eddie gasps out, his whole body tightening up and arching. “Yeah, shit, yeah.”

It’s like a closed feedback loop, his choked little noises and the way his body clenches up, shuddering, tensing, so fucking hot for it. His body arches up, asking for more.

Richie gives it to him. He’ll give Eddie anything he fucking wants. He pinches one nipple, then the other, back and forth between them as he fucks him, until Eddie’s writhing in agonised pleasure underneath him. He looks like one of those paintings, one of the religious ones with some martyred saint stuck through with arrows and bleeding, mouth open in ecstasy.

He wonders if Eddie wants to bleed. If he wants Richie to scratch at him so deep and so hard that he’ll end up with blood under his fingernails, and Richie’s got that hot, sick feeling in his stomach as he pulls at Eddie’s nipples and watches as tears start to leak from the corners of his eyes. 

“Rich,” Eddie gasps, “Richie, will you - oh, fucking slap me. Hit me.”

Richie’s vision goes blurry behind his glasses as he imagines for one fleeting second slapping Eddie across the face. It’s not what he means, but Richie burns with shame and hot, dark wanting even as he shoves his dick in deeper and slaps Eddie’s thigh on top of the rows of scratch marks he put there earlier. He’s trying to be careful, trying not to jostle Eddie too much but the sounds Eddie makes as Richie slaps him and scratches him and fucks him only make Richie want to hit him fucking harder, make him squeal, make him fucking _cry_.

“You’re gonna make me come on you,” Eddie says, and his voice sounds thick, like he’s on the verge of sobbing. His hands still clutch the sheets, and he doesn’t make a move to grab his cock, or do anything apart from take Richie’s dick so so good. 

“Gonna,” he says, “you’re gonna -”

Richie slaps the base of his dick. Not as hard as he’d hit his thighs, but not lightly either, and Eddie does sob then. It sounds…

God, Richie is a sick fuck, but it sounds so fucking good. Eddie’s face is pink and wet with tears and all Richie wants is to make make him fucking lose it, to give it all up for him. He does it again. Eddie jerks and makes a strangled noise. Richie can’t imagine how much it must all fucking _hurt_. His reddened thighs, plucked-sore nipples, even the little marks that are scattered all over his arms. 

“Fuck, Eds, you’ve got to come,” he grits out, “I can’t - you’re so -”

“Hit me again,” says Eddie thickly, and Richie doesn’t have to ask where. He shoves inside Eddie and slaps his dick, and Eddie clenches around him with a soft, aching groan. Richie’s hand slips around Eddie’s cock just in time for come to surge over his fingers and onto Eddie’s belly.

Every time Richie makes someone come on his dick he thinks that this time it might be less intense, this time it might not make him feel like he’s about to have some sort of out-of-body experience, gripped so fucking intimately with those little rhythmic pulses. But fuck. Fuck. This is Eddie. This is Eddie, and he’s underneath Richie, covered in marks that Richie made, come all over his stomach, tears all over his face. He’s letting out little hurt-sounding noises that could be pleasure or pain, and the fact that Richie can’t tell the difference is what finally tips him over, makes him come for-fucking ever, shove his dick in so deep Eddie chokes into his mouth and swallows Richie’s helpless groan. 

They stay wrapped in each other, the air between them sweltering and smelling thickly of sex. It feels safe in this stifling, airless little cave they’ve created. Eddie hitches his leg a little higher on Richie’s back and Richie holds himself as still as he can, breathes in Eddie’s recycled air until he grows lightheaded and has to pull away to let some oxygen in between them. 

“Fuck,” says Eddie finally. He lets his legs drop and tips his head to the side to gasp, then wipes at his face uselessly with his hand. 

Richie stays where he is. He can feel that his legs are trembling but he can’t seem to do anything to stop it. Eddie moves around underneath him, squirming and shoving at his shoulders to try to get him to move, and Richie finally gets a clue and gets off him, ending up on his back and blinking at the ceiling. 

“Holy fucking shit,” he says. From beside him, he hears Eddie give a weak snort of laughter. 

“Holy shit,” he says again, “is this… is that what it’s going to be like every time? I’ll fucking die, man.”

Eddie groans. “I think we have to save that for special occasions. Jesus.”

Richie musters up the energy to flop his head sideways, to take in Eddie’s body still slumped across the bed.

“You good?”

“Fuck,” says Eddie, blinking his eyes open and meeting Richie’s gaze. “Yeah. _Thank you_.”

“Ew, come on dude. Don’t thank me for sex, that’s creepy as shit.”

“Don’t be a moron, _dude_ ,” Eddie parrots back. “You know what I mean.” One of his hands drifts up his arm, along one of the red scratches that Richie’s fingernails made. 

“You really like it, huh?” says Richie.

“I can’t - can’t really explain it. It makes things so… intense? Like it all mixes up together when you touch me. It’s… uh. Yeah.”

“It feels… I dunno, it feels so fucking messed up to look at you all crying and in pain and be like, _aw yeah, that’s the stuff_.”

“But you do?”

Richie swallows. “I mean, yeah. Fuck. _Look_ at you, man.” He gestures at Eddie’s whole… situation. “You look hot as shit all covered in jizz and tears and… fuck, did I bite you? Is that a fucking bite mark?”

“Yeah, and it _stings_ , you giant neanderthal.”

“Jesus. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Eddie touches it lightly, then looks over at Richie. “Don’t be sorry, alright? I literally asked for it.”

“I know. I know, it’s just -” Richie reaches for him, and they roll together, inches apart and breathing into the shared space between them. It’s easier to tell Eddie things here, where they only have to slide out of his mouth and into Eddie’s. “It’s kinda freaking me out,” he murmurs. “How much I like it. How much I _didn’t_ like it when you got hurt other times. I know it’s not the same -”

“It’s pretty fucking different from getting speared through the chest.”

“I know, numbnuts. It’s not like I’m gonna get an insta-boner if you trip on the sidewalk or whatever. But… what you said about it all mixing up together? It’s uh… a lot. I’ve seen you in a lot of pain, man.”

Eddie makes a thoughtful noise.

“It’s not fucked up, to like it,” he says. He’s so close that his breath is warm on Richie’s face. “It’s not fucked up that it reminds you of, uh…”

“Times that were less fun? Times we were being tormented by a psychopathic alien clown? That nearly made me shit my pants in fear?”

Eddie laughs, his eyes crinkling. “Yeah.”

“I know. It’s just -” 

Richie trails off, not sure where that sentence ends. He doesn’t know how to untangle the sticky mess of thoughts that want to spill out of him. That want to be pulled out of him, by Eddie being here and warm and smelling of their shared sweat and come and Richie’s laundry detergent.

Eddie kisses him, slow and sweet. He hardly has to move his head to do it, just brushes his mouth against Richie’s.

“So you’ll tell me,” he says, like it’s that easy. “Tell me, like this. And I’ll tell you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I trust you, man.”

“Fuck, that’s romantic,” says Richie. Eddie’s smile widens, his face so close it’s mostly a pink and brown blur. “How do you do that?”

“I dunno. It’s easy when it’s you.”

Richie groans and slaps his hand against his heart. 

“Have some fucking mercy, Eds. You can’t just say this shit.”

“I love you.”

“ _Fuck_. Yeah. Yeah, I love you too.”

And maybe it is that easy. Not to handle Eddie carefully, but to push when he asks to be pushed. Hurt when he asks to be hurt. To give him everything he fucking wants, and leave him covered in the evidence that Richie would do absolutely anything for him. Yeah. Yeah, okay. That’s easy.


End file.
